Tag Archives: scientism

Scientism: When science becomes a clumsy and dangerous religion

Science is fine…as science; and what science is, is a methodology man uses to describe various relative relationships—between objects, between himself and objects, between himself and others, etc.—he observes in his environment. Via this methodology he creates an abstract conceptual framework, commonly mathematics, which then can be transferred and transmitted around the world with relative ease, in language, spoken and written, and used to whatever practical (like building a ship), or abstract (like charting a shipping route), end is desired. Science is a cognitive, conceptual tool the observer, mankind, uses to organize that which he observers, period, full stop. Go no further. This is the sum and substance of science. Anything more than this is a lie.

Take evolution for example. In the purely scientific sense, evolution is perfectly fine and reasonable, and should pose no threat whatsoever to any spiritual person, like the Christian, for instance…because the idea that evolution has anything to say about God, the nature of man, or the nature of reality is ridiculous. Evolution is literally nothing more than a concept man uses to describe a certain, specific relationship he observes in his environment—for example, what this fossil looks like relative to that fossil…or whatever. To add to this any metaphysical assertion, or to use it to deny that there is any such thing as the metaphysical at all, and evolution becomes a philosophy…and, sorry, it is just not that. At all.

Ask the evolutionary biologist to describe the philosophy of evolution and he will give you a confused look every time. Even he knows (or should) that one has nothing to do with the other…and yet so many atheists will call the Christian a fool for believing in God and use evolution as “proof” of their argument, even though the concept of “God” has everything to do with what evolution does not—the nature, value, and meaning of Man and Creation, and, perhaps most poignantly, consciousness—whereas evolution merely and only deals with the description.

The atheistic response to this fact is to cultish-ly and predictably deny that anything other than the description actually exists. There is nothing objective beyond the description, they assert; there is no real value nor meaning nor purpose…you can’t get an “ought from an is”, they will explain. Of course they ignore or don’t realize that the denial of any real philosophical meaning to man and creation is in fact a value judgment because it implies that the pure description of reality, removed from value, meaning, or purpose, is preferable because it is more truthful; and truth is obviously and observably more efficacious. Which means that truth is more valuable. See the irony?

The fact is that the only way that any observer (that is, any human being) can make a truth claim in the first place is by conceding at the very least implicitly that the truth has more objective value than a falsehood. Without a root, inexorable value distinction between truth and falsehood then what is the difference? None at all. If there is no objective value to truth and falsehood, then there can be no objective purpose, which means no objective way of telling the difference. In other words, if truth and falsehood have no objective value then they have no objective purpose, thus there is no objective way to apply truth and falsehood in order to verify and/or determine which is objectively which.

The fact is that there simply cannot be any description (truth claim) without prescription (value claim)—no truth without value; no epistemology without ethics; no science without philosophy; no physics without metaphysics. The argument that there is only description but no prescription, only “is” but never “ought”, only truth but no value, is fundamentally to deny consciousness—which is precisely what these scientific mystics do—and to deny that anyone is conscious is to deny that anyone is ever actually saying anything at all. So why bother listening to them…”them”being the peddlers of this nonsense? There is no “them”. “Them” doesn’t exist!

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Do I have a problem with science qua science? Not at all. My problem is with what science has become, which is religion. Not that I have a problem with religion, but science makes for a particularly offensive, clumsy, and stupid religion…a uniquely unsophisticated gnostic-type mysticism I call Scientific Determinism, but which I think is more popularly called Scientism. I call it clumsy, stupid, and unsophisticated because it, by design, has no definable, articulable metaphysics or ethics, and openly denies them, whilst implicitly pushing the ever-loving daylights out of them to the point that its proponents (e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens) are perhaps the most vicious and sarcastic religious disciples I’ve ever had the displeasure of hearing. These hypocrites seethe at other belief systems to the point of pure loathing whilst pretending their metaphysics and ethics (i.e. meaning and value) don’t actually exist…which leaves one to ask why all the hate then? The answer is of course that they see other gods as threat their own; but since they cannot actually defend their god because they cannot articulate their own metaphysics, because their religion is stupid, they vomit all over everyone else’s god and pretend that they don’t actually have one. The hypocrisy breaks the scale.

In this religious capacity—science as scientism; where science co-opts metaphysics whilst pretending to reject them—science is no longer an innocent conceptual tool, but an amateurish yet supremely arrogant and destructive philosophy which seeks to describe the nature of man and the nature of his environment; the nature of the relationship between them; the nature of his existence; and, most disturbingly, the value of his creation and consciousness, by promoting the idea to themselves and others that none of this is actually real. Instead of seeing man as an objective frame of reference, which he is (the Observer), Scientism makes man’s frame of reference as the conscious observer a product of science…of “natural law” and “mathematics”, the “language of the universe”. The “laws of nature” are no longer conceptual tools invented by man to describe his environment and his place in it, but are now his Creator. In other words, they are no longer tools but gods. Man the observer is, in the religion of Scientism, now a direct function of that which he observes.

This of course is a rank contradiction in every rational and logical sense, but it is to be expected as Scientism is nothing more than bog-standard mysticism minus the explicit metaphysics and ethics, and, like bog-standard mysticism, Scientism looks first to subvert man, then murder him. Which it will do, inevitably, if left to its logical conclusion.

Under the mysticism of Scientism, science is no longer a conceptual framework for man to use in service to himself, but a cause of man, himself, which is ironically about the least scientific premise possible, should someone have thousand years to think one up. “Laws of nature”, like evolution, are not longer a conceptual abstraction that man creates from his own inexorably conscious frame of reference, but have their own “objective” and distinct existence “outside” of him. They are “discovered”, not contrived. Science is no longer a product of man’s consciousness, in other words, but man’s consciousness is a product of science…or it isn’t, and consciousness is punted into the cosmic abyss of epiphenomenon or transient illusion or some other such rubbish. The point is that under Scientism, the observer is somehow a direct function of what he observes; and the very inexorable distinction which is utterly required for observation to occur in the first place is magically obliterated.

If this isn’t rank religious mysticism then nothing is.

Proponents of Scientism deliberately or implicitly attempt to sidestep this bit of metaphysical pap by asserting that observation, by which is meant consciousness, is just an illusion, a-la Sam Harris…or that consciousness is some kind of ontologically transient epiphenomenon at best—certainly not objective, absolute, and/or epistemologically essential—as if this obscures the clumsy metaphysics rather than spotlight them…and, to be fair, sadly it does much of the time. Science as Scientism is no longer about what the observer observes but what the observer is; and what he is is nothing.

This is a death cult, period. Take a look around, friends…read the paper, watch the news, and listen to your political leaders…what solutions are they proposing for the world’s problems? Trust they science they say…and what does science think of you as an ontological individual with moral worth and agency? Not much. Not much at all.

Again, science is now just bog-standard mysticism, and probably worse because it lies to itself about its metaphysics, and this is what we all should be debunking…because the idea that man, the observer, is a direct function of those processes and forces he observes from his unique and distinct conscious frame of reference is rank folly, and simply cannot be defended rationally, which is why science interpreted this way becomes Scientism, which becomes a religion steeped old fashioned gnostic mysticism, which is nothing more than a death cult.

The fact is that the very truth and integrity of science rests upon an absolute distinction between the observer and the observed, as well as the basic, elementary logical understanding that the former simply cannot be a function of the latter. To assert otherwise is to obliterate both, and, most atrociously, reduce man to a mere thing, having no particular existential value at all, and dismissing his consciousness as nothing but an illusion at best, and more like an outright offense to reality, which obviously renders truth and morality as they pertain to man’s fundamental ability to actually, objectively posses them entirely moot. This is the stuff mass murder is made of…demonic.

By the way, if we follow the logic of the claim that “consciousness is an illusion” to its necessary conclusion, we realize that this means that man’s very ability to perceive anything at all, and certainly anything objective, is entirely absent from his nature according to the “science”. Man’s very epistemological and ethical frame of reference is fake…so of course he cannot perceive anything real. In which case, how can he actually know anything?

He can’t. Which is why he is implored again and again by his clueless and/or complicit leaders to “trust the science”…by which they mean “trust the divinely enlightened priests of Scientism’ because only they have been given the “grace to perceive” in the utterly gnostic sense.

Needless to say (or is it?) that what follows from this half-baked ideology is the rise of the tyrant-class—the “special”, “uniquely enlightened”, “divinely appointed”, “bred-better” philosopher kings, who by some religious magic have gained absolution for their own failed, illusory consciousnesses. These people have been appointed by the gods to compel the great, unwashed, unconscious masses into “right behavior” by violence and threats of violence, often manifest in the State, whereupon the masses are inevitably and summarily dashed against the rocks of what amounts to nothing more than the hedonistic whims of their “leaders”. This is where Scientism, like all cults, goes in the end.

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As stated, the very rationality and truth of science rests upon a necessary a-priori distinction between the observer and what he observes; between the mere perception of the senses and the singular self of the consciousness; between objects and the nature of objects; between mere description and value, or meaning; between science and philosophy. In other words, science cannot describe a metaphysic—a metaphysic must already be assumed before any science is actually possible; and that metaphysic is, again, the basic distinction between the observer and the observed. Once that is wrecked, there is no science, there is only a religion. And a stupid one at that.

No Christian, nor any other spiritual person, should ever feel threatened by criticism coming from anyone claiming science as a means of disproving or casting reasonable doubt upon the existence of God or any other spiritual matter. Science has nothing to say about metaphysics nor ethics, and without these things, no effective argument against any religion or religious idea is possible. Advocates of “scientific truth” as a means of dismantling religious and other philosophical ideas, in order to get at the “objective truth” of man and creation, become the witting or unwitting evangelizers of their own religious dogma; and their method of arguing their own metaphysical assumptions is to simply pretend that they don’t have any. The intellectual fraud and hypocrisy is shocking…and even more shocking is the fact that most of the time the disciples of scientism don’t even notice. They really do think they are being objective. Embarrassing.

Do yourself a favor—embrace science, but reject scientific mysticism, or Scientism. Science doesn’t make for much of a philosophy…unless violent, nihilistic, death-worshiping, dysgenic philosophy is what you’re after.

Then it’s the crown jewel.

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